Trans-Siberian Orchestra has been coming to Green Bay for so many years that it feels a little like seeing family at the holidays.

Lead guitarist and music director Al Pitrelli has been a familiar face as part of TSO's West Coast company since the group first started touring in 1999. When he looks out at the crowds at the Resch Center, he sees familiar faces, too. He likes to affectionately refer to the regulars who turn out each time TSO makes a local stop on its wildly popular holiday spectacle as “repeat offenders.”

“One of the things that nobody understands about what Paul O’Neill and his family created is, not only did he create an art form that didn’t exist and this touring entity and the recordings, he created relationships because of this. Meaning there isn’t a city on God’s earth that we don’t go to that you don’t know a lot of the people there, because ... we’ve developed these relationships over 20 years,” Pitrelli said.

One of the highest-grossing acts on the road, TSO is known for its holiday rock operas and insane level of pyro and lasers. When it launches its Winter Tour 2018 on Nov. 14 from the Resch, Pitrelli won’t just recognize people in the crowd who have bought more than 14 million tickets since TSO formed in 1996, but people behind the scenes at the arena, too.

“When I go into Dallas, when we go into Green Bay, when (drummer) Jeff (Plate) gets into Pittsburgh or New York, a lot of the people at the venues have been working these shows for 20 years, you know? I mean the security, the people in the concessions, and the people in the parking,” he said. “And then, you know, you have the folks from the audience who come to see us and you look down and it just makes you smile. It’s just like seeing a distant relative that you haven’t seen all year. That’s the one thing that I hope everybody who reads this understands, that the relationships that have been developed and nurtured because of what Paul O’Neill and his family created are what’s most valuable to me.”

It’s also why TSO still does an autograph line after its shows.

“So for 20 years you see the same people come through the line every year, but that person that came through in 1999 with their son or their daughter, well, that son and daughter are now grown up and they’re coming through with their family,” Plate said.

Pitrelli and Plate did a teleconference interview in advance of this year’s tour featuring “The Ghosts of Christmas Eve.” They talked about carrying on after the 2017 death of founder, composer and lyricist O’Neill, the rigors of playing 65 cities in six weeks and why this year’s mammoth production means “more stuff.” Here are edited excerpts from that hour-long call.

Green Bay is the first stop on Trans-Siberian Orchestra's Winter Tour 2018. TSO plays two shows on Nov. 14 at the Resch Center.(Photo: Courtesy of Mark Weiss)

As the first tour without Paul, last year must’ve had its own emotion to it with remembering him. What was that like?

Pitrelli: I think it was probably one of the hardest years of our professional careers. Both Jeff and I and some of the other guys have been with Paul since (the mid-’90s). He had this idea of creating Trans-Siberian Orchestra, and we were just privileged and blessed to be along for the ride and to be part of it, and we watched it kind of grow up and we’ve been there from the jump. And to have the carpet pulled from beneath us so suddenly and tragically last year really just put us all in a different mindset.

I think sorrow and the pain that goes along with losing a loved one was prevalent with everybody, but also I think the task at hand was to say, “OK, well, Paul had always said, ‘We want this thing to live long past all of us.’” I don’t think any of us were prepared for that to occur so soon, but we were kind of handed that task. And with his family steering the ship and their guidance, we kind of really hunkered down last year, even more so than usual, to make it the best it could possibly be. And the fact that folks in communities around the country and globally reacted so well to it, and here we are this year exceeding last year’s ticket sales, the excitement building towards it, just means that again Paul was right as usual. This will live past all of us.

It was really hard to deal with it last year. I mean, everything on that stage, every note we played and every pyro hit, was his creation, so he was there with us at all times. And there was a few moments in the show where I really had a difficult time kind of just getting through it because, you know, he was like a big brother, aside from being our boss and our producer and creator of this whole thing. I mean, you know, literally we have spent half of our lives, both Jeff and I, sitting next to the man in studios and on tour buses. And then to be out there, and you can’t get it out of your head that he’s gone, because everything around you he created.

Plate: Paul was the guy running around the floor of the arena pointing out a certain light wasn’t the right color or wasn’t in the right place, or somebody wasn’t properly positioned on stage, or a vocalist wasn’t exuding enough emotion, or whatever. You know, all these little things that sometimes you just thought Paul was, you know, “God, what’s he doing?”

But he was fine-tuning his vision, and as Al said, Paul was always right. And every time that we kind of scratched our heads and looked around at some of the things that he was talking about doing, but then you see the final product and go, “Oh my God, he’s right on the money." So to do this without Paul, obviously it’s difficult, but he prepared us for this and he talked about this time and time again, how Trans-Siberian Orchestra was going to outlive all of us. It was going to be something for the ages. And to think that we would be carrying on without him, it wasn’t in the plans, but here we are. And to his credit and for us to honor Paul, we’ve got to go out and be the best we can be every time.

It seems like every year you kind of outdo yourselves with the production. What do you have planned for this year?

Pitrelli: Our production heads, our department heads, and the crew, they’ve been probably tweaking this on computer-generated drawings and stuff like that for the better part of eight or nine months now, but they keep it so under lock and key, because every year everybody’s dying to see what TSO does production-wise, and then other bands touring the planet kind of adopt some of the things or the technology that we’ve been involved with creating.

All I can tell you is that last year we had 18 tractor trailers and seven buses just for the crew, and I heard that we’re up to 20 semis and a couple more buses, so that just means more stuff. And if you look at the trajectory over the past 20 years we’ve been doing this, in '99 we started out with one 24-foot box truck and five machines and a couple lights, to where we were last year with 18 trucks, so it’s just gotten bigger and better and crazier every year.

The anchor of the show is obviously the rock opera but how much do you try to add new songs?

Pitrelli: The center of the show is “The Ghosts of Christmas Eve,” and that’s performed in its entirety. Those songs will remain intact because that’s the underscoring for Paul O’Neill’s beautifully written story. Now the back of the set, or the second half, if you will, there’s probably six or seven new songs that we’re looking at to insert into that. The “Ghosts of Christmas Eve” is just timeless and classic, and (longtime fans) love the fact that they’re going to come see that. But they all know, and we owe it to them and all the other 900,000 people that came to see us last year, we owe them at least something different each year. We want to keep everybody on the edge of their seats, and everybody has their favorite songs.

Are the shows physically exhausting?

Pitrelli: No. I’ll tell you who it’s physically exhausting for, Jeff playing on drums and the entire road crew. Those guys are the ones loading in at 5:30 in the morning, unloading 18 tractor trailers, and getting it ready for 3 p.m. And then packing the thing up by midnight and driving 400 miles to the next city. How they do it, I’ll never understand. God bless every one of them. I mean, we’d be dead in the water without them. For me, I’ve been dreaming about this since I was a little kid, you know? And the wonderful thing about dreams is that, if you keep having the same dream over and over again, then your life becomes that dream. And for me, I live in this kind of crazy microcosm where I get to do what I love more than anything for a living. So you never get tired of that, it’s like getting tired of breathing or getting tired of telling my children I love them. I’ll never get tired of it.

Plate: If any of us onstage are ever feeling sluggish and dragging their feet or feeling sorry for themselves or whatever, yeah, just look at the crew. Because more than likely they’ve had maybe two or three hours of sleep, and they’re going to do that same routine that following night and then the following night after that. So it’s so rewarding just to know that we can go into a city and play a major arena twice a day and fill it up. And if you can’t get up for playing in front of 10,000 people, you probably should be doing something else.

Just when you thought Trans-Siberian Orchestra's shows couldn't get any better, this year's production travels with 20 semis, up from 18 in 2017.(Photo: Courtesy of Bob Carey)

Have you ever been distracted by the explosions and lasers during the show?

Plate: This is what the rehearsals are all about, and if you’ve ever had the pleasure of being at our rehearsals, it’s a drill. I mean, we approach all of this like it’s a show day, and for the two weeks that we’re out there rehearsing, all of these details are really gone over with a fine-toothed comb. I am sitting in the drum chair. I have a lot of pyro around me. We go through a number of tests just to make sure that nothing is too close, too hot, too intrusive on what I’m doing. There are a lot of moving parts. There’s a lot of things going on. Everything imaginable is on that stage, and if Paul was here, he would be trying to put more on it at any given time.

“Christmas Eve/Sarajevo 12/24” has become a real holiday standard. How does it feel to hear your song on the radio every holiday season in the company of classics like “White Christmas” and “Jingle Bells”?

Pitrelli: (That was) 1995, so we’re going on 24 years. It’s about almost half of my life. I don’t remember life before it, it’s like having a 24-year-old child that’s grown up to do amazing things, just like my actual children have done. It’s Paul’s child, I’m just like the weird uncle, you know? And I’m real proud to be part of it. My daughter, Olivia, who’s 7 years old, that’s one of the songs that they play in their music class now, and she just kind of smiles ear to ear knowing that that’s daddy’s music, too.

Plate: I’ve been asked many times what my favorite song of the show is, and it is still “Sarajevo 12/24,” because it is so powerful. The production during that song in our show is way over the top, everything is going on at the same time. But it is the song that everybody recognizes. You’ve got people air drumming out there, you’ve got fists in the air. At the end of that song, every time we perform it, it’s a standing ovation. And it’s just such an honor, and it’s a thrill, it’s a rush, however you want to put it. But just to know that that song is really what catapulted this whole thing to where we are right now is amazing.

“Wizards in Winter” has become the go-to song for people who synchronize their Christmas lights to music. How does it feel to have a song that enters people’s lives in such a tangible way?

Pitrelli: There was an interview with Elon Musk, and he was talking about the new Tesla and how he inserted a chip into the car that makes the lights, the blinkers, everything, kind of flash to “Wizards in Winter.” This isn’t something that you could script. This is, again, Paul O’Neill told us a long time ago that all you do is concentrate on making great art and hopefully everything else will fall into place.

Are you moving forward with any recording projects?

Pirelli: There was a lot of material that Paul had written with his partner Jon Oliva, stuff that Paul had written by himself and things that he had written with his daughter. There’s just so much material that hasn’t been recorded yet. We’ve been doing a lot of demos, a lot of maps, having some singers down, and there’s plenty of stuff taking shape. No releases in mind yet.

Can you talk about the charity work Trans-Siberian Orchestra does with the ticket sales in each city on the tour?

Plate: This is something we’ve done from the very first show, and this was something Paul instilled in us. It’s just the right thing to do to help somebody that needs some help, and we have donated $1 or more for every ticket sold to a local charity in every one of the cities that we play in around the country. We've donated over $15 million.

Pitrelli: Paul and his family wanted to change the world, be it a dollar at a time or a song at a time, and I think they’re accomplishing that. We just like to tap everybody on the shoulder and say, “Hey, it is the holidays, and there’s people that are much less fortunate. Let’s be better Americans, let’s be better citizens, let’s be better humans and just become selfless for that moment and help somebody out, change the trajectory of their life.”

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